Here we go again. Five years ago, Beto O’Rourke spent a then-record $79 million, enjoyed almost unprecedented generous coverage from the national press, and came within three percentage points of incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. There was a strange hangover among Democrats and the national press, and by the time O’Rourke ran for president in 2019, it was safe to acknowledge that he had been an overrated Senate candidate, a phenomenon that reflected what the media had wanted to see instead of what was actually there.
Over at the Daily Beast, Margaret Carlson offered a blistering assessment of O’Rourke, about a year after it was needed:
According to my unscientific poll asking every woman I see, Beto reminds them of the worst boyfriend they ever had: self-involved, convinced of his own charm, chronically late if he shows up at all, worth a meal or two but definitely not marriage material. When he should be home with the kids or taking out the trash, he’s jamming with his garage band or skateboarding at Whataburger. He’s “in and out of a funk” which requires long and meaningful runs to clear his head. Every thought he has is transcendent, worthy of being narrated, videotaped, and blogged. He is always out finding himself. At age 46, the man asking to run the country is currently lost.
Once again, Texas Democrats are talking themselves into believing this is the cycle that is defeated, and NPR is here to tell us how optimistic they are about Democratic Congressman Colin Allred.
Allred flipped a congressional district outside Dallas in 2018, a year that Democrats did particularly well in the midterms. He’s kept the seat ever since.
Morgan says Allred’s announcement got him excited about the odds of Democrats flipping this seat.
“You know because he’s battle-tested, well-known and well-liked in the state,” he said. “So, he really makes it now where Texas becomes probably our best pickup opportunity across the country next year.”
If Texas is the Democrats’ best pickup opportunity across the country next year, then they will not be picking up any Senate seats.
Is Allred a pretty good candidate by Texas Democrat standards? Perhaps. But it is still Texas, and it will be a presidential turnout year. We go through this narrative every cycle, it seems; in 2022, the Uvalde mass shooting and the end of Roe v. Wade were supposed to drive Democrats to new heights. Most Republicans won easily. As the Texas Tribune summarized, “O’Rourke, the most promising Texas Democrat in recent history, got walloped by Gov. Greg Abbott by 11 percentage points, and every other statewide candidate lost by double digits.”
NPR quotes Sawyer Hackett with the Lose Cruz PAC saying that Cruz is unpopular. Cruz had pretty meh approval numbers in fall 2018, too, and he’s a bit more popular today than he was in 2017 and 2018. Cruz’s job approval rating doesn’t move around that much.